


And The Sun Will Rise Again

by Otonymous



Category: SLBP - Fandom, Samurai Love Ballad Party - Fandom, Samurai Love Ballad: PARTY, 天下統一恋の乱 | Sakura Amidst Chaos | Samurai Love Ballad (Visual Novel)
Genre: Angst, Death, F/M, Suicide, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-19
Updated: 2019-03-19
Packaged: 2019-11-24 07:40:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18162914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Otonymous/pseuds/Otonymous
Summary: Mitsuhide discovers the hard way that some things are worse than death.





	And The Sun Will Rise Again

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Spoilers for Mitsuhide's act 2 divine ending and epilogue. Please see additional warning tags listed.
> 
> This is my reworking of Mitsuhide’s act 2 divine ending (I have yet to play his noble ending — please excuse me if there’s any overlap between the stories). I took some creative license in trying to incorporate some historical tidbits/conspiracy theories regarding what happened to the actual man himself after the Honno-ji incident. As such, there may be some canon-divergences for other SLBP characters mentioned in the story. Hope you all enjoy it!

The birds were twittering loudly when Mitsuhide awoke to see bright sunlight filtering into the bedchamber. He swallowed painfully, trying to rid his mouth of its strange, sickly sweet taste and push away the dull ache in his head. Feeling thoroughly disoriented, as if he had spent days in slumber and not his usual six hours, he finally thinks to take a look around.

The enormity of what had come to pass hits him like a sudden summer storm when he sees her, body stiff and face with the pallor of a broken doll, lying resignedly on the futon they shared every night since becoming man and wife during happier times.

Poison. The poisoned tea had taken her life and not his. And Mitsuhide thought himself the most insidious poison of all, letting an innocent girl from Kyoto suffer through the trials and tribulations of a love that was doomed from the start. No, happiness wasn’t his lot in life, but once he had found it in her arms, it was impossible to let go and slowly, his misfortune bled into hers.  _What a wretched, selfish creature I am._

How he cursed the gods at that moment for taking her and making him suffer the cruel fate of being left behind. But it wasn’t until he awoke days later, finding the blood-stained blade of his _wakizashi_ strewn next to him and the flood of maroon on his white _shini-shozuku_ , that he realized the extent of this cruelty: no matter what he did, the sweet release of death would never come to claim him. For Akechi Jubei Mitsuhide was immortal. And the perfectly healed line of pink running from left to right on his abdomen proved it.

* * *

 

“Mr. Akechi, how is it that you manage to look so young year after year? What’s your secret?”

“I swear, this man never ages.”

A polite smile spreads onto Mitsuhide’s face as he pushes the fork into his slice of birthday cake, his fellow teachers crowding around him with curious glances and congratulations. He is careful to brush off their observations with the usual modest pleasantries, trying to make it through this tenth of March, one of the hardest days of the year, as best he could.

Mitsuhide catches his reflection in the window, and for a moment he spies hers next to him. The din of jovial conversation in the room dies away, and he can almost hear her whisper in his ear, “Happy birthday, my love,” just as she had centuries ago.

So much has happened since, Mitsuhide’s identity through the ages shifting like sand on a shore, changing according to the tides of the times. A wanderer before he found the light of Lord Nobunaga’s vision, a wanderer now after the light of his life had been extinguished.

Sakamoto Castle, where he used to gaze fondly at the serenity of Lake Biwa by her side, was disassembled stone by stone by Toyotomi Hideyoshi to furnish one of his own. In much the same way, the clever general systematically blotted out Mitsuhide’s name and rewrote his reputation in the annals of history. Even today, stories depicting him as a villain make for sold-out shows at _kabuki_ theatres, but for Mitsuhide, their sting has long since passed.

Tokugawa Ieyasu, the only other keeper of his secret, had recognized his considerable talents and persuaded him to join the shogunate as his advisor, going so far as sending his _shinobi_ to seek him out at Kita-in temple, where he had entered monkhood under the name of Tenkai. But even Ieyasu — who used to admire his eternal youth and vigour — had to admit that he no longer envied the samurai who couldn’t die, giving Mitsuhide one final glance of pity through eyes dim with the encroachment of eternal sleep before succumbing to death’s summons. After serving two more Tokugawa shoguns, Mitsuhide decided it was time to finally move on.

But regardless of what he did and who he was, he could never move on from her. She was the constant fixture in his existence, an anchor mooring him amidst the choppy waves of fortune. And so it was that he waited, lifetime after lifetime, to meet her again.

“That’s the bell. Time to return to class.” Mitsuhide nods his head at his co-workers, pushing his spectacles up the bridge of his nose as he reaches for the thick stack of graded history papers on his desk. The staff room suddenly becomes a lot less imposing in his absence.

* * *

 

 _Another cruel trick of fate,_ he thought to himself, trying hard to control the heart that threatened to beat its way out of the cage of his chest. For there she was, his darling, the love of his cursed life, happily conversing with the other students in his classroom, absentmindedly curling a loose lock of hair about her index finger as she reached into her school bag to retrieve a textbook.

He would have recognized her anywhere, regardless of how much the passage of time threatened to blur the fidelity of his memories: the bright eyes, youthful yet harbouring a wisdom far beyond her years, the easy smile that he had sworn to always protect. Even her laughter, clearer than any temple bell ringing out in the mountains, threatened to bring him to his knees. Of course, these same qualities served to draw attention to her, and Mitsuhide was ashamed to find that he could be jealous of boys half his presumed age.

He would be patient. For now, it was enough to know that their paths had crossed in this lifetime. After all, he was no stranger to waiting, and time was the one thing he had in excess. 

* * *

 

It had been so long since he was last with a woman that Mitsuhide was afraid he had forgotten what to do with one. In all those years, she had been the last person he held in his arms, and longing conspired with guilt to ensure his bed remained hostile to anyone but its proper mistress.

When he finally feels the enveloping slide of her warmth welcome him home after eons of being adrift, the moment is bittersweet: kismet, a perfect sense of belonging, yet a painful remainder of all the things that slipped through their hands like grains of sand. Words left unsaid and children they never had. And at the back of his mind, Mitsuhide is already counting down the days when the clock will stop ticking on a happiness so great as to almost be surreal.

“Where did you get this one from? A surgery of some kind?”

Her head is on his chest, breath coming out in soft heaves as she descends from the peak of her third climax of the night. Her fingers dance across his body, busily exploring all his old battle wounds, and now they trail gently over the strip across his stomach, so pale as to be almost unnoticeable if not for its sheer length. Mitsuhide gathers her hair in his palm and presses his lips to it, reminiscing on how easily the smooth tresses transformed into beautiful braids in his dextrous hands.

“An accident from when I was young and foolish.”

No, Mitsuhide had decided that she didn’t need to know, that she shouldn’t be burdened once again with the problems that were his alone to face. In an eternity of solitude, it was more than enough that she had deigned to grace him with her company for however long she wished to stay.

She nods solemnly, a pregnant pause in the air before she looks up at him to respond, “You don’t strike me as someone who’s ever behaved foolishly in their life, Mr. Akechi.”

In her eyes, he sees the same woman of ages past, ethereal in a white wedding kimono of his choosing. This woman had flushed vibrant pink under him when he encouraged her to address him as a wife addresses her husband, dropping all rank and formality.

“Have you forgotten? You’ve long since stopped being my student and I your teacher. You can call me Mitsuhide.”

And in the sweetness of her smile, the sun rises again on the interminable days of Akechi Jubei Mitsuhide’s life.


End file.
